Disney World Fires Hundreds of Employees; Replaces Them With Immigrants

Once upon a time, there were about 250 tech workers who were running the computers in the central nervous system of Disney World operations. Then, one day, Disney laid them all off, hired immigrants brought in on visas to take their place, and required many of the former employees to train their replacements.

This isn’t your typical Disney-fairytale, but this is what The New York Times reported Thursday.

In October 2014, about 250 employees were laid off and Disney used an outsourcing firm in India to hire immigrants that would work under a temporary visa, known as H-1B, for highly skilled technical workers. Some employees’ severance checks required they continued doing their job for the next three months as they trained their replacements.

Disney executives claim that the layoffs were part of a reorganization of the company and they opened more positions than it eliminated, the Times reported.

One former worker told the Times that young immigrants from India took their place: